


While The Song Remains The Same

by Chipper_Daily



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Enemies to Friends, Here to explain why the canon IZ timeline is a mess, M/M, Major Character Injury, Swearing, Temporary Character Death, Time Loop, ZADF, ZaDr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 03:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21487411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chipper_Daily/pseuds/Chipper_Daily
Summary: “Trust me. Just this once.”
Relationships: Dib/Zim (Invader Zim)
Comments: 28
Kudos: 173





	While The Song Remains The Same

**Author's Note:**

> For zadr week; Phase 2 day 6- Song Lyric
> 
> Phrases I never thought I'd say; This fic was heavily inspired by the Interpretive Dance AU introduced in Invader Zim issue #40, which remains one of my absolute favs. You can check it out on comiXology right [here](https://www.comixology.com/Invader-Zim-40/digital-comic/754689?ref=c2VhcmNoL2RldGFpbC9kZXNrdG9wL2dyaWRMaXN0L2l0ZW1zU2VhcmNoRGV0YWlsTGlzdA) if you haven't had a chance to read it.
> 
> The song is 'While the Song Remains the Same' by Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, which you can check out right here on [Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OO0sy7M7TLo) or [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/0sPc8DgUGniGSZFRUdPKuq?si=lyddgnzGRyG0dSpRkAVr8g)

_ Hold that thought, don’t let me go _

_ We can dance beneath the fireflies on an empty road _

_ It’s a shame how memory fades to grey _

_ We let love get lost in anger, chasing yesterday _

—-

It started like any other Monday.

The September air was crisp with the promise of oncoming winter, but the early morning sunlight brought the warmth of fading summer. Birds sang sweetly from the branches of trees, the leaves in the earliest stages of the annual shift from vivid greens to the coppery hues of autumn.

Not that any of it mattered to the students trapped in Ms. Bitters grade five class, who were collectively too mired in the metaphorical swamp of adolescent apathy to pay much mind to the passing of the seasons, or much of anything else, really. Certainly not to their teacher’s lecture about outer space and how it will eventually implode in on itself. Or the new kid, who was quickly establishing himself as a weirdo. And _ least _of all to the already firmly established class weirdo, who had immediately jumped to defend his freak-king crown. 

“That is no kid! He’s an alien! An _ alien! _ One of the monsters I’ve been talking about! He’s here to conquer Earth!”

“Aw, not this again.” Zita leaned forward across her desk to shoot the class loser a scathing look. Zim- the alien- cast a nervous glance between the big-headed human child that had so easily seen through his brilliant disguise and the purple-haired girl sneering from behind him. “You’re crazy.” 

And that should have been the end of it.

Keyword- should have.

—-

Mr. Niso had wholly given up on trying to get one Dib Membrane to actually focus on his lessons and, if he were honest, literally everyone was better off for it. He was no longer disrupting his own class to bark at the black-haired boy to face the front, which meant he was no longer triggering some sort of wild tirade from the twitchy teenager. 

For his part, it’s not like whether or not Dib was paying attention to the lecture actually made any difference in his grades. His classes were either painfully easy, and he could coast through by acing his tests and only handed in a homework assignment or two if his marks dipped a bit too close to failing. Or they were classes that didn’t come as naturally to him as math and the sciences, soft subjects like english, and those really didn’t matter, at least according to Dib. And, more importantly, Dib’s father, who didn’t even _ pretend _to care whenever an art or social studies teacher actually DID manage to get a hold of him to discuss his brilliant son’s wasted potential in the realm of the humanities. 

Dib would be graduating soon, but he knew none of it actually mattered. He could limp through high skool and scrape together just enough credits to walk the stage so his dad could get another nice, normal milestone photo to hang on the wall to showcase his nice, normal family to his business partners whenever he brought them on a mini-tour of his nice, normal home. As for university, Dib literally didn’t care. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t need a degree to chase yetis. Also, he knew his dad would just make it happen. That’s how it always went when Professor Membrane had his mind set on something. It didn’t matter what Dib wanted, so nothing else mattered either.

What did matter was seated two rows to the left and three seats back from Dib. 

Zim purposefully ignored Dib’s piercing stare, his meticulously polished little black boots resting on his empty desktop (Zim was another student Mr. Niso had learned it was better to leave to his own devices, for the sake of the rest of the class). His arms were folded behind his grotesque green head with an air of forced nonchalance. 

What an _ asshole. _ Dib hated him so much he could spit blood.

It had been five, long, arduous years of defending a wholly ungrateful human race from Zim’s unrelenting evil. Or, mostly unrelenting. Admittedly it had relented a smidge when he hid in a toilet for a year. That was debatable, though, because the end goal of that relenting was to take advantage of Dib’s diligence as Earth’s sole protector and make him fuse with his computer chair. So he would argue that year-long lull still counted as some pretty unrelenting evil. At least as far as Dib was concerned. Not that anyone else particularly cared about what concerned Dib. 

But all of that was going to change by the end of the week. Dib dipped his head to shoot a menacing grin at the awful little space cockroach like he’d practiced in the tiny hanging mirror inside of the last locker he had been stuffed into. Which Zim steadfastly ignored without so much as batting an eyelashless lid. (Why did no one else notice Zim didn’t have eyelashes? Or eyebrows? Or pores?) The alien monster clearly had no inkling that his reign of terror was about to come to an end, all thanks to Dib’s superior human intellect and mastery of infiltration. 

By which he meant he’d bought Minimoose an entire bag of Gummi Bears, and a promise that Dib would deliver a second bag at the end of the week if the tiny doomsday device carried a recording device around Zim’s base on Dib’s behalf. 

It was basically the perfect plan. Precisely because this time, GIR wasn’t involved.

Zim, meanwhile, was playing it, as his fellow inferior pig-smellies would say,_“cool” _ while he waited for the school day to end. He had sent GIR to hide a wasp nest in his human nemesis’ bedroom while the big-headed creature was trapped in <strike>child prison</strike> skool, and he really couldn’t wait until the Dib got home to discover his new roommates. 

It was basically the perfect plan. Precisely because, well, he was _ Zim. _

—-

Black smoke churned in thick plumes into the dusk sky, orange flames licking greedily into the air as Dib dragged himself away from the intense heat to lean heavily against a tree a safe-ish distance away.

Well. So much for his dad’s car. 

And so much for what sad social life he had since he was pretty sure his dad was going to ground him for this one until Dib was_ thirty. _

It was pretty hard to focus on feeling bad about his summer plans metaphorically going up in flames while his father’s car very literally went up in flames, because Dib was about 98% certain his leg was broken, and that was eating up an awful lot of his attention. Like, he’d always heard that breaking a bone hurt but, holy shit, this really _ hurt. _ If he were even slightly less stubborn, he’d probably be actually crying. 

Which he wasn’t. His face was definitely just wet with sweat. Manly sweat. 

He groaned at the sound of an annoyingly familiar cackle as Zim dropped down through the billowing smoke to land in a menacing low crouch, imposingly backlit by the burning wreckage. 

Dib rolled his eyes and gingerly readjusted himself into a bit of a more dignified position, propped up against the trunk to sternly cross his arms and level a deeply unimpressed look at his mortal nemesis. Zim would have cut a much more intimidating figure if Dib didn’t know, with absolute, utter certainty, that Zim had only dropped down into his action-movie pose because he wanted to pose dramatically. Because Zim was the biggest drama queen Dib had ever had the misfortune of knowing. Sure enough, the moment was ruined when Zim tried and failed to stifle the urge to cough after dropping through the thick smoke. 

Once the little Irken had finished making a sound not unlike a cat trying to hack up a hairball he stood up straight and critically eyed up Dib for a beat before narrowing his magenta eyes, planted his tiny fists on his hips, and sauntered over. 

“Why are you on the ground, worm-child? Are you surrendering?” 

“_ No. _ ” Dib huffed indignantly as he glared petulantly up at Zim, who absently scratched his thigh, clearly nonplussed. “You broke my leg. _ Jerk. _” 

“Did I?” Zim brightened as his antenna perked forward. Dib had only a fraction of a second to realize his mistake as Zim’s face split into a broad zipper grin, and he took a cheerful half-skip to kick Dib in the knee, sending his injured leg lurching to the side. 

Dib doubled over with an involuntary cry as white-hot _ fire _ripped up his leg. His scream petered off into a vicious snarl as he made a swipe at Zim, who easily danced out of range with a delighted cackle. The little Invader stopped just out of Dib’s reach and planted his hands triumphantly on his hips. 

“Yup, that’s broken.” He chirped with a self-satisfied nod. “Whoo boy, it hurts when that happens. Consider that payback, Earth-boy.”

“_Payback? _ ” Dib gritted his teeth and snapped back. “When have I _ ever _broken any of your bones, Zim?”

“You broke my- uh, hmm, eh,” Zim paused, his gaze dropped to the ground as though the answer he was looking for could be found there, his brow crinkled in thought as he idly scratched beneath one of his antennae. “Meh, it doesn’t matter, I’m sure you broke my _ something _at some point.” Zim finished with a mild shrug. 

“You’re the worst.” Dib grumbled darkly. His eyebrow quirked and his lips suddenly pulled back into a sadistic grin that bared too many blunt, white teeth for comfort. “Also, the authorities are almost here, and you’re stuck without a disguise, space-boy.”

Zim’s eyes popped wide in horror as he abruptly clued into the sound of not-so-distant sirens, his antenna bolting upward in alarm. 

—-

Cold salt air cut through his already wet coat, raising goosebumps, but Dib wasn’t ready to go inside from the rain just yet. 

He’d never been on a boat before. Professor Membrane was of the opinion that forms of transport like trains and ships were outdated and a waste of his valuable time when it was so much more efficient to fly. Literally. He’d just finished patenting the first Membrane jetpack earlier that month. While Dib was inclined to agree with his dad (on this subject, at least), he couldn’t help but feel legitimately delighted in this particular scenario. 

Zim cowered as far from the small ferry railings as he could get, crushed up against the external wall of the cabin to keep as much of his scrawny little body under the thin overhanging roof as possible. Trapped on the deck by the rain. Dib slowly sipped a juice box with relish as he drank in the sight of his nemesis looking so damp and unrelentingly miserable. 

He had only enrolled in high skool French class to keep tabs on Zim. Because, _ surely, _ the little Irken had SOME sort of devious plot he was hoping to flesh out away from Dib’s diligent gaze, and someone with a literal _ built-in translator _ wasn’t unironically taking a _ language class. _ The downside being that Dib didn’t also have a built-in translator, and then he was stuck in high skool French class. Humanity would never truly understand how he had suffered to protect them. 

It had paid off in the end, at least, with one major overseas school trip to Paris before the seniors graduated. It was his first trip without his dad or sister around. He’d had a decidedly ok time, for the most part. It would have been a lot better if he wasn’t stuck with his classmates. But, along with the comforting knowledge that it wouldn’t be long until he never had to see any of his awful classmates ever again, this afternoon alone almost entirely made up for it. After and long and boring bus ride from Paris to Calais, they’d boarded a ferry to head over the Dover Strait for an overnight stay in Dover. It hadn’t occurred to Zim that a _ ferry _ was another human word for a _ boat, _ which meant _ water _\- and LOTS of it- until they had literally arrived at the port. The ensuing meltdown had put a skip in Dib’s step and a song in his heart. It was a scene he would savour like a fine wine for the rest of his life. 

He loudly slurped the last drop out of the bottom corner of his juice box with relish and made a bit of a show of hauling himself away from the railing to saunter over to his shivering nemesis. The rest of their class and other tourists had ducked away into the cabin and below deck once the rain started. It was just the two of them. (As it should be, really.)

“How’s your _ glue _holding up, Zim?” Dib drawled smugly and crushed his juice box in his hand.

“Away with you, Dib-beast. Zim is not interested in your games right now.” The little Invader eyed him warily and took a hesitant half step back. He hadn’t grown at all since fifth grade, unlike Dib, who had almost a full foot on his long-time rival by this point. It was an advantage that Dib made sure to utilize whenever he got a chance. Not to mention, it just seemed to annoy Zim, which was always fun. Sure enough, Dib didn’t miss the way the shorter Irkens eyes narrowed, his jaw clenched, and his little hands tightened into fists at his side as Dib leaned his elbow against the wall to loom over him. A few stray droplets of water dripped from his coat sleeve to leave dark little stains on Zim’s magenta uniform before Zim jerked away from him. 

“You know, Zim, it rains all the time in England.” Dib quirked an eyebrow. “I can’t wait to see you try to find some privacy to re-apply your paste, space-boy.” 

“You’re lying.” Zim hissed, but there was a note of trepidation in his voice as his gaze darted up at the grey skies above them. Dib barked out a short, derisive laugh.

“This time, I’m actually not, but you’ll figure that out soon enough.” He took another step to close the distance between them, his tone taking on an almost sing-song lilt. “I have a sneaky suspicion that these next two days are going to be my favourite out of this whole trip.”

He shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was to find himself abruptly shoved away. 

“Get _ off _ me, Dib-stink,” Zim spat. “You’re dripping _ everywhere. _” 

For reasons Dib was absolutely not going to examine, the sudden push stung more than he’d anticipated. From the hurt bubbled a much more easily identifiable emotion- anger. It was uncalled for, but before he could stop himself, he shoved the smaller boy back. 

“_ You _ get off!” 

“That doesn’t even make _sense! _” 

And, just like that, the two were tussling under the awning. Dib tried to drag Zim fully out into the rain, but the little Irken firmly dug his heels in. He was surprisingly strong for his size, still able to hold his own against someone who was so much larger than he was. 

(Sometimes it made Dib wonder if Zim had been purposefully holding back on him when he was a kid, but would quickly dismiss the thought. Not because it wasn’t plausible, but because it left Dib feeling anxious, weirdly guilty, and strange inside.)

At first, Dib hadn’t realized what had happened. One moment he’d been groping along Zim’s back, grasping for a solid hold to tug the boy out into the rain, the next he was flailing out in the storm himself, his arms wheeling wildly to try and keep his balance. Which probably would have worked if they were on solid ground, but with the ship heaving beneath them, he wound up crashing down onto the gritty deck. 

There was a breathless moment where he watched Zim snap rigidly upright and blanch, the little Irkens eyes darting to Dib’s right hand at the same moment his own gaze flicked over. There, gripped tightly in his fist, was Zim’s weird little egg-backpack thing. 

Well then. Dib hadn’t known that _ could _come off.

Then everything was happening at once. Zim lunged out into the rain after him, and Dib rolled out of his path and tried to desperately scramble away. Only to be knocked back to the ground as the little Irken tackled him from behind. Dib curled defensively around the small piece of alien tech and cried out as sharp little talons dug mercilessly into his upper back and shoulders.

“Give it back!” Zim snarled into his ear, his hands fisted ruthlessly in Dib’s hair to wrench the human’s head back as Dib squirmed to get a solid footing. Dib threw himself to the side, landing hard on the Invader with a garbled grunt, and Zim loosened his hold enough for Dib to roll out of his grip. The human only had time to get up onto his knees before he turned to see Zim scramble onto all fours to launch himself at Dib once more, his face set in a terrible grimace as steam wafted from the skin that he’d scraped against the rough, wet surface of the deck. 

So Dib panicked and threw the backpack over the side of the ship. 

Dib braced himself for an impact that didn’t come- Zim raced past him with an awful shriek, and for a split second, Dib legitimately thought Zim was going to throw himself over the railing after it. Zim hit the rail with a hard thunk, his skinny little body bending over the side of the ship to frantically search the waters below. Dib slowly pulled himself to his feet and carefully began to back away, some gut instinct whispering that he’d crossed a line this time. Suddenly Zim whirled around to fix Dib with a look of wide-eyed_ fury. _ The little Irken was so tense he was actually shaking as his face twisted to bare his interlocking teeth in a primal snarl. 

In a blink, Zim was on him again with a guttural scream. Dib threw his arms over his face to protect his eyes from a flurry of claws biting wildly into his flesh as he crashed down on his back hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs, violent red spattering against the deck to be washed away by the rain. 

Those horrible claws relented only to be replaced by a pressure around his neck that made his blood run cold. Dib ripped his arms away from his face to gaze up at Zim in honest disbelief as the little Irken squeezed Dib’s fragile throat in his crushing grip. This must- this _ must _ be a nightmare, none of it felt real. At the same time, it was all too terrifyingly real. His lungs screamed for air as his heart hammered in his chest, raw panic screaming alarms in his mind. He kicked to try and buck the Invader off of him, clawed wildly at Zim’s arms and hands, yet that iron grip wouldn’t loosen. His vision was starting to go dark around the edges, and he didn’t know if his face was wet from the rain or if he was crying because, holy fuck, _ holy fuck, _ Zim was going to kill him, Zim was actually going to _ kill _him this time. 

And the last thing he was going to see was his mortal nemesis hunched over him, his face set in grim, awful, determination, and Dib hadn’t known Zim’s PAK could come off, and he hadn’t know Zim could cry before either.

Because Dib didn’t know, and he would never get to know, that he’d just killed Zim too. 

—-

It started like any other Monday.

The September air was crisp with the promise of oncoming winter, but the early morning sunlight brought the warmth of fading summer. Birds sang sweetly from the branches of trees, the leaves in the earliest stages of the annual shift from vivid greens to the coppery hues of autumn.

Not that any of it mattered to the students trapped in Ms. Bitters grade five class, who were collectively too mired in the metaphorical swamp of adolescent apathy to pay much mind to the passing of the seasons, or much of anything else, really. Certainly not to their teacher’s lecture about outer space and how it will eventually implode in on itself. Or the new kid, who was quickly establishing himself as a weirdo. And _ least _of all to the already firmly established class weirdo, who had immediately jumped to defend his freak-king crown. 

“That is no kid! He’s an alien! An _ alien! _One of the monsters I’ve been talking about! He’s here to conquer Earth!”

“Aw, not this again.” Zita leaned forward across her desk to shoot the class loser a scathing look. Zim- the alien- cast a nervous glance between the big-headed human child that had so easily seen through his brilliant disguise and the purple-haired girl sneering from behind him. “You’re crazy.” 

And that should have been the end of it.

Keyword- should have.

—-

The heat of the late May midday sun was almost unbearable, especially on the sticky black asphalt of the Skool playground. Still, Dib refused to take off his jacket. The fifth-grader had an aesthetic, after all. It made him look mysterious (and, at this particular unfortunate moment- sweaty). He’d spent most of recess squinting skeptically at Zim, who had spent most of his break staring wearily at nothing in particular, clearly wilting and miserable in the heat. A half-memory itched in the back of Dib’s mind, faint and too surreal to be true, but it didn’t fit the formula and flavour of Dib’s typical dreams either. It felt a bit too solid. And, all things considered, he was dealing with an evil lizard from space, who even knew what kind of technology Zim had at his disposal? 

(Dib WOULD know though, oh, he would know everything about Zim as soon as he figured out how to sneak past Zim’s defences to get into his proper base hidden deep underground.)

Finally, he steeled himself and hopped off the wooden bench to briskly march up to his sworn nemesis. Zim met and held the human’s gaze with open suspicion but thankfully didn’t move to escape, overconfident in the thought that Dib wouldn’t try anything on Skool grounds. Or he was overheating. Either way, Dib wasn’t going to waste his opportunity. 

“Hey, Zim,” Dib stopped an arm’s length away from the tiny green terror. “Remember when I told you not to do that thing, and you did that thing anyhow, and a giant donkey destroyed the Earth?” 

“Nope.” Zim answered flatly. 

—-

“Can I request some sort of capital punishment instead?” Zim asked with utter sincerity without waiting for his tiny raised hand to be acknowledged by the home ec instructor. Dib shot the horrible space menace a dark scowl- It should be _ Dib _complaining about their punishment, not Zim. It had been Zim’s fault anyway. Dib just happened to be a… victim. Of circumstance. The circumstance in question being stopping Zim’s evil. Which may have involved a fridge exploding. But, hey, sometimes sacrifices had to be made for the sake of the greater good. Either way, it was all Zim’s fault, and Dib had no place being in detention with the tiny green terror. 

Too bad Ms. Pitt didn’t seem to agree. She met Zim’s question with an icy glare and a low growl. 

“Capital punishment is reserved for infractions performed during the core courses, and you know it.” She sneered as she cooly eyed up the two seventh grade delinquents. “After today’s open display of anarchy and blatant disrespect towards the fine art of feeding yourself, the principle has decreed you both be given a chance to redeem yourselves, and your marks, through the horrible toils of creating soda bread.” 

“Bread?” Dib groaned as though this revelation was physically painful. “That takes forever!” 

“Zim is ready to be taken behind the groundskeeper’s shed and shot now.” Zim added with grim resignation on the heels of Dib’s outburst. 

“We don’t have buttermilk like the recipe calls for.” Ms. Pitt didn’t dignify either of their complaints with a response and instead turned to sweep up a carton of 2% milk off the counter and plopped it into Dib’s arms in one fluid motion. “But we DO have plenty of sour milk. _ Because we don’t have a fridge anymore. _ And that will just have to do.” 

“Does it… _ have _to be soda bread, in that case?” Dib wrinkled his nose as he gingerly tilted the milk carton. 

“It’s the standard punishment recipe, yes.” Ms. Pitt lowered herself gracefully onto a swivel chair near the front of the baking lab. “Now, let’s see if those horrible little adolescent child hands are half as effective at creating as they are at destroying.”

The short answer was; No.

The long answer was; _ Fuck _no.

Zim got to leave early due to a horrifyingly violent anaphylactic response to inhaling baking powder. Dib was finally released after presenting their final result. Burnt, flat, and a solid F. It was a bit disheartening, to be honest, since Dib prided himself on being good at science, and he’d assumed baking would be more-or-less in the same vein. They hadn’t screwed up this badly since the time they tried and failed to come up with an antidote to Zim’s stupid bologna serum. (How did they fix that, anyway? Eh, he supposed it didn’t really matter.) 

At least Dib walked out on his own two legs instead of on a stretcher like Zim, and an empty victory was still a victory. Dib was going to take it nonetheless. Victory for Earth or whatever.

—-

“End of the line, _ Dib. _” Zim crooned with sadistic delight as Dib threw his weight against the rusted door leading into the abandoned apartment building to no avail. Dib whirled around to meet the gaze of his sworn nemesis, the thirteen-year old’s jaw clenched, his shrewd brown eyes alight with both anger and fear. Zim grinned in return, wicked and cruel, as he slowly advanced up the remaining steel fire escape stairs bolted to the side of the mouldering building on his PAK legs. “Any last words, dirt-child?” 

Not that Zim was planning on actually killing the human pest, even if he wasn’t in a place where he was willing to admit it even to himself. 

The memory of when his human nemesis had briefly abandoned him the previous year was still too fresh. The unexpected sting and ensuing languishing in the face of Dib’s blunt rejection, followed by bubbling, almost euphoric joy upon the human’s return and subsequent resetting of the status quo. 

If Zim were honest with himself (which he wasn’t), he would have to admit that, as of late, his schemes had shifted focus from conquering the planet to… setting up excuses to lure his nemesis back down into the belly of his base so they could repeat the events of that fateful evening. When Dib had vowed he would always be Zim’s bitter enemy, and the two had spent the next few hours simply… playing. 

Chasing each other through the depths of Zim’s various labs, slinging mock threats back and forth and play wrestling until Dib’s inferior human body was too exhausted to continue. The self-proclaimed saviour of Earth flopped onto his back on the floor of lab C-8 and panted up at the ceiling while Zim, despite everything he’d learned through all his long years of military training, didn’t take advantage of his enemy’s blatant display of weakness. In fact, Zim did nothing at all but watch the human boy fling an arm over his eyes, tan and repulsively fuzzy when viewed up close, like the rest of his revolting species, but at the same time, _ different. _ Somehow slightly… _ less _revolting. Just because it was the Dib. Then Dib had laughed, a breathless, wheezing thing that ended in a disgusting nasal snort, and though Zim had laid down on the floor in the exact same spot to stare blankly up at the wire covered ceiling many times since that day had passed, he failed to see what his human had found so funny. 

It had been… fun. Just plain, simple, fun, for the sake of having fun. 

‘Play’ was not really a concept among Zim’s kind. From the very moment of his birth, he was trained to be useful to the Irken Empire. ‘Fun’ was something that had to be earned, either through loyal servitude or social status. To waste time faffing about with a member of some inferior species for literally no reason beyond the desire to waste time with that particular creature was unheard of. Weak. _ Shameful. _

And Zim found himself _ craving _it. 

Not that he would ever admit it, even under torture, but his fondest memories of his time trapped on this miserable planet were the days he spent doing absolutely nothing of any importance. Mostly with GIR and Minimoose, occasionally with Dib, and, on one memorable instance, with Gaz, who had graciously allowed Zim to watch her screen- as long as he promised to stay _ quiet- _in the clinic waiting room while the Dib was getting stitches. (The Dib-sister was also slightly less revolting than the rest of her drooling, idiot species, for reasons Zim couldn’t quite pin down. Admittedly, he hadn’t investigated too deeply into the Gaz mystery, mostly because he didn’t have a death wish and didn’t want to risk upsetting the terrifying purple-haired creature.)

“Yeah, I do,” Dib cracked a dark grin as he reached into a hidden pocket sewn into the inside of his coat. “Victory for Earth.” He withdrew a small, hand-held water pistol. Zim, recognizing the _ hated _ little neon blue implement of _ torture _instantly, screeched and flung himself out of the way of the first squirt of unadulterated aggression, hitting the old railings hard enough to make the ancient iron stairway rattle beneath them. 

And, just like that, the two were tussling on the stairs. Zim would die before he ever admitted it, but he was quietly impressed by the Dib’s strength and wit. Even completely unaugmented, the primitive Earth creature could more-or-less hold his own(ish) against a trained Irken soldier. As long as Zim was playing fairly and not utilizing his PAK. Because that’s what they were doing, wasn’t it? Just _ playing. _

It was exhilarating, trading quick jabs and witty banter high above the dark crevice of a forgotten alley. Dib’s signature coat swirled dramatically around his waist as though it was woven from shadow itself, while Zim rose above his nemesis, shining and triumphant, the hero of his own story and a perfect picture of his superior species. Just like one of the trashy action movies GIR was so fond of. 

Two lonely boys from opposite ends of the galaxy, ridiculed and ostracized by their own kind, that, against astronomical odds, had found and latched on to each other across a cold and uncaring universe.

Zim leapt out of Dib’s grasp to rebound off the brick wall, twisting in the air to solidly kick the human in the chest with both feet. Dib careened back with a sharp, breathless cry, to hit the railing with a shuddering clang that sent rust raining down into the alleyway far, far below. Zim landed much more gracefully with a smug grin. They both knew that was the final blow. He stood straight and as tall as he could manage and planted his fists proudly on his hips. 

“Zim wins again, Earth-boy.” He sang with a flourish as he sauntered smugly to where his nemesis was leaning against the railing, trying to catch his breath. “You may beg your future slave-master for your worthless life now.” The little Irken paused mid-step as his antenna perked with a sudden thought. “Hey, what happened with those wasps I put in your room, anyway?”

“What? You never put wasps in my room.” Dib managed to wheeze, his face scrunching in confusion (on top of the scrunching it was already doing in pain).

“Didn’t I?” Zim blinked, perplexed, before annoyance soured his expression. His communicator popped out of his PAK, and he cupped it daintily in his little hand. “_ GIR! _You’ve failed me, AGAIN. Feel _ shame._” Zim glared down at the communicator like it had personally offended him as GIR’s chipper voice squeaked an agreeable “Okie Dokie!” through the device, and it quickly retracted back into his PAK. “Well, time to die, stink-beast.” Zim chirped as his PAK legs burst from their casing. Dib flinched, much to Zim’s delight, as he hooked his upper legs into the rusted steel of the flight above them to swing himself high above his mortal foe.

Both of their eyes popped wide as the old fire escape lurched sickeningly beneath them with an ominous screech of twisting metal. For one surreal, breathless moment, they hung suspended, and their eyes met, disbelief and trepidation in both human and Irken expressions as the stairs groaned. Then the moment passed, like a bubble bursting, and the rusted stairwell ripped entirely free from the crumbling brick to collapse in on itself. 

The dust had finished settling by the time Zim finally stirred. 

He tried to lift himself only to promptly discover he’d shattered his right elbow upon landing. Thankfully, his PAK still appeared mostly functional, and one elegant, silver leg caught him on his damaged side before he collapsed again. Zim slowly hauled himself to his knees with a low groan and gingerly clutched his chest with his functional arm. He couldn’t breathe too deeply, just short, shallow gasps. His side felt like it was full of _ knives. _ His PAK pinged him to let him know it was because his ribs on his right side were also broken, so he kind of _ did _ have a side full of knives. Or splinters, more accurately. His pelvis was also fractured on the right side, and he had a concussion just as a little cherry on top. It hurt ( _ oh sweet Irk did it hurt! _), but it was nothing immediately life-threatening, and certainly nothing beyond what his PAK could fix. Well, he’d need to perform some surgery on his elbow to ensure the joint healed adequately, and he didn’t wind up with painful bone fragments floating around in the tissue. He wasn’t looking forward to it, but it’s not like he hadn’t performed similar procedures before. 

Zim shakily pulled himself to his feet with a pained hiss, his PAK leg accommodating for his damaged right side as he began to gingerly limp his way around the twisted steel. Zim just needed to get back to his base. Everything could be fixed, he just needed time to heal, and he needed to get somewhere safe for that. 

But-

He couldn’t leave, not until-

He didn’t know why, but his vision was starting to go dark around the edges. Still, he squinted as he scanned the dark alley, desperately searching for-

_ -there. _

A familiar spike of messy black hair. 

Both relief and irritation rushed through Zim’s veins as he sagged against his PAK leg with an exasperated sigh and painstakingly shuffled over to the prone human boy. 

“That was your fault, you know. You have broken Zim’s superior bones, and as soon as they stop being broken, vengeance shall be mine, wretched Dib-thing.” The little Invader growled, but there was no real bite behind his words. He sounded more tired than anything. “Now get up, we have to get out of here before anyone comes to investigate.” 

But Dib didn’t get up. He didn’t move at all. 

“... Dib?” Zim slowly shuffled to a stop, there was something unnatural about his rival’s stillness. The Dib was always fidgeting, his long fingers twitching, his lips silently (and often not so silently) moving in time with his thoughts, pacing back and forth and gesturing broadly, the bright young boy’s enthusiasm too much to be contained. He wasn’t supposed to be so… _ still. _

It seemed like the narrow alley was getting darker, looming closer, as Zim swayed slightly on his damaged leg. Something that felt an awful lot like fear crept up his spine and lodged itself tightly in his throat. It was hard to tell what was happening, it was all layers of black on black on black. Dib’s black boots, his black coat, and black hair, lying face down on the black asphalt, one pale little ear poking out from the mess of his unruly hair that Zim could see from where he was standing, and the thick line of black fluid that ran down his cheek from it. Black on black, spattered on the pavement beneath his human’s broken little body, nothing but a liquid glisten in the dying light to give away how far it had spread. 

And Zim had never felt so very, very small. 

—-

It started like any other Monday.

The September air was crisp with the promise of oncoming winter, but the early morning sunlight brought the warmth of fading summer. Birds sang sweetly from the branches of trees, the leaves in the earliest stages of the annual shift from vivid greens to the coppery hues of autumn.

Not that any of it mattered to the students trapped in Ms. Bitters grade five class, who were collectively too mired in the metaphorical swamp of adolescent apathy to pay much mind to the passing of the seasons, or much of anything else, really. Certainly not to their teacher’s lecture about outer space and how it will eventually implode in on itself. Or the new kid, who was quickly establishing himself as a weirdo. And _ least _of all to the already firmly established class weirdo, who had immediately jumped to defend his freak-king crown. 

“That is no kid! He’s an alien! An _ alien! _ One of the monsters I’ve been talking about! He’s here to conquer Earth!”

“Aw, not this again.” Zita leaned forward across her desk to shoot the class loser a scathing look. Zim- the alien- cast a nervous glance between the big-headed human child that had so easily seen through his brilliant disguise and the purple-haired girl sneering from behind him. “You’re crazy.” 

And that should have been the end of it.

Keyword- should have.

—-

“Come on! You have to remember _ space prison! _” Dib’s shoulder’s sagged as he added flatly. “You know, your ‘hallucination’ after the conference where you unveiled your Membracelets?” 

“Mem… bracelet?” His father trailed off awkwardly and exchanged a look across the kitchen table with his sister. His dad, baffled, and Gaz, deeply unimpressed. 

“_Seriously? _ You know, for running apps and generating world peace?” Dib ran his hands through his unruly hair with a frustrated hiss and wheeled on his sister. “Gaz, _ please, _ can you just back me up here for once?” 

“Dib,” Gaz lowered her glass of orange juice back down onto the table beside her burnt toast with a slow, terrible kind of patience to fix her brother with an icy look. “Did you hit your head harder than usual or something?” 

“Running apps and generating world peace, you say?” Professor Membrane mused distantly to himself as he absently stroked the approximate location of his chin beneath his high collar, a steaming cup of instant coffee forgotten in his other hand. “Now, that’s not a half-bad idea…” 

“I’m NOT crazy!” Dib snapped, exasperated, and slapped his hands down on the table hard enough to jostle the cereal in his bowl. “I mean, how else can you explain-” He blinked, surprise instantly replacing indignant anger as he leaned away from the table to glance around the dimly lit kitchen. “Wait, where _ is _ Clembrane?” 

“Clembrane?” Gaz stated flatly as she arched one eyebrow skeptically. 

Dib’s attention suddenly snapped back to the table, and he blanched as he gazed down into his soggy cereal. He shoved his chair away and stumbled awkwardly back away from the domestic scene. 

“Where’s Foodio?” Dib’s voice was low, apprehensive, his gaze rapidly darting back and forth. Gaz and Professor Membrane’s gaze met again, this time with a look of concern. 

“Uh,” His father carefully placed his mug down on the table, his tone stilted and uncertain as he warily eyed up his son. “You reprogramed Foodio into Destructio. The national guard had to destroy it, or it would have annihilated the entire human race, don’t you remember?”

Dib clenched his small fists over the twin round scars on his chest hidden beneath his cotton pyjama shirt, stark reminders of his mishap with Zim’s PAK, and met his father’s gaze with a dazed and confused look.

“Yeah… now that you mention it, I _ do._”

\---

Earth was saved, yet again.

Most of it, anyway.

Dib pressed his face against the domed glass of Zim’s Voot to catch his last glimpse of the Wal*Mart collapse into roaring flames, and presumably all trace of the aggressive Nhar-Gh’ok with it, before they were too far away to see anything but thick black smoke coiling into the night sky.

“You know, I wasn’t expecting to fistfight space babies when I woke up this morning.” The teenager turned as well as he could in the cramped space to eye up his mortal nemesis/occasional partner, a note of suspicion colouring his tone. “What did you do to get them so worked up, anyway?”

“Zim has never done anything wrong.” The little Invader sniffed dismissively. “Ever.”

Dib gave Zim his flattest stare before turning away with a skeptical snort, quickly deciding he simply didn’t have the energy to get into it right now. Also, he knew from experience that Zim wasn’t above dropping Dib out of the bottom of the ship and leaving him to find his own way home from wherever he landed. So instead, he shuffled down into as comfortable a position as he could on the cramped cockpit floor with a loud sigh.

“You know, you should really install another seat here, or at least get a floor pillow or something.” Dib didn’t wait for Zim’s almost definitely rude retort before he kicked his heels up against the side of the control panel and shot a hopeful look up at his sworn enemy/only friend. “Hey, you want to swing by that McMeaties by the park? You can just hide the Voot in the trees or whatever, and we’ll grab a couple shakes to go. I’m starving.” 

“You DARE command ME, your greatest, most _ incredible _ ENEMY to take your filthy inferior meats on a SNACK RUN?” Zim’s gaze snapped down to the human, large magenta eyes alight with indignant anger. “I should saw your ugly gigantic head open and see what it’s actually filled with, because it’s certainly not _ brains. _”

“No, it’s ok, I have a two-for-one coupon here somewhere.” Dib’s pink tongue poked out over his lip, a habit he’d had since he was a child, as he rustled through his coat pockets. Zim rolled his eyes and released a massive, resigned sigh as he flopped back into his seat.

“... Fine. But _ you’re _paying.” 

\---

Dib gritted his teeth and kept climbing up the ladder. He could already feel a nasty blister rising on his cheek where the burning ember had hit him, smouldering ash still raining down from the sky, painted violent orange and black from spewing flame. 

He didn’t know if he’d ever felt this _ angry _before, his chest so tight with a heady mix of hurt and betrayal he was having a hard time breathing properly. 

This wasn’t supposed to be happening, they were supposed to be past this. 

It had been years since Zim’s last attempt at global domination, and who even knew how long since his last _ sincere _ one. Honestly, Dib shouldn’t have been so surprised. Something dark twisted in his guts. He’d dropped out of every college he’d been accepted into, he’d been fired from every job he’d ever managed to land, dumped by every date he’d been on, and ghosted by every human friend he thought he had. Honestly, why did he ever think this unspoken truce _ wouldn’t _(very literally) blow up in his face too? Really, he should have expected this. Everything he touched fell apart, eventually. 

The sad silver lining to his crapsack of a life was that he’d spent so much time kicking around Zim’s base over the past few years that GIR was as agreeable to obey Dib’s commands as his Irken master’s at this point. (And how pathetic was that? The only source of stability and support Dib had in his life was his mortal fucking nemesis.) So when he’d come to with the worst headache he’d had since he’d been tortured with a brain-gnawing bloodge hat back in sixth grade and discovered himself locked in one of Zim’s old containment chambers, it hadn’t taken long to convince GIR to release him. It hadn’t taken him too long to navigate the labyrinth of the little Invader’s underground base to freedom either. Another perk of having no friends, hobbies, or life outside of obsessing over one stupid, unstable, alien (who also appeared to have no friends, hobbies, or life outside of antagonizing his stupid, unstable, human).

“_ZIM! _ ” Dib roared once he’d reached the top of the ladder. “You little _ shit, _ what are you doing?!” Zim whirled around with wide, surprised, magenta eyes, his little antenna bolted upright in alarm. He must really be expecting this attempt to work since he hadn’t even bothered with donning his disguise. 

“_Dib. _” Zim sneered in palpable frustration, his eyes narrowing and antenna pressing defensively flat against his scalp. “You should have stayed in the base, human! You can’t stop it now!” 

Dib swung his legs over the ledge of the building onto the roof with an infuriated growl and stormed across the gravel, his hands tightly clenched at his side. Zim squared his narrow shoulders and steeled himself, his face set in grim determination even as he quickly backed away from the much taller human until he was backed against the ledge of the roof. Dib loomed over the tiny Irken for a heartbeat, teeth grinding in his jaw and hands itching at his sides. It had been a long, long time since he’d last hit Zim for real, and the weight of that time and how far they supposedly had come from there hung heavy in the burning air between them. Zim’s little hands twisted nervously in the hem of his uniform and Dib could see his throat move as he swallowed thickly, but he didn’t break eye contact.

_ God, _ he looked like he’d barely changed at all over the years. 

But so much had changed between them, hadn’t it?

_ Hadn’t it? _

Dib crouched down, dropping to one knee so they were eye to eye like they hadn’t been since fifth grade, and grabbed Zim roughly by the shoulders.

“What are you _ doing? _” Dib shook Zim, his voice raw with frustration and desperation.

“My_ mission, _ Dib!” Zim snapped back, defiant, but made no attempt to escape the human’s grip.

“_Why? _ Why _ now? _” 

Zim’s lips stubbornly pressed into a thin, tight line, and Dib was griped with the overwhelming urge to shake him again, and keep shaking until he’d rattled the stupid right out of the infuriating tiny green terror. That impulse dissipated like a puff of smoke when Zim’s gaze flicked away from steadily meeting his, strangely ashamed, and the Invader bit his lower lip to hide a tell-tale tremble. Dib’s eyes widened, concern softening the jagged edge of anger as he loosened his grip on his life-long rival (and only friend)’s shoulders. 

“What happened?” Dib’s voice was barely above a whisper as he tried to catch the little Irken’s gaze. “Zim, tell me.” 

“I… received a transmission last night,” Zim’s voice was uncharacteristically small as he squinted down at the hands wrapped around his shoulders. “Saying that Operation Impending Doom 2 was a success. That- that it’s _ over. _” Zim’s brow wrinkled in confusion as his eyes finally flicked back to meet Dib’s, glistening in the orange glow with baffled, unshed tears. “But it can’t be over, because I’m still here.” 

“It’s… over?” Dib blinked, his tone hesitant as he struggled to wrap his mind around the implications. 

“No, it’s _ not! _ ” Zim’s face twisted miserably, his thin shoulders bunched defensively. “Not for _ me. _ I tried to contact my Tallests to let them know there’d been a mistake, but I couldn’t get through. I tried and tried, but I couldn’t- I couldn’t get through. I think... I think something is blocking my signal.” 

“Zim, do you realize what this means?” Both joy and disbelief waged war in Dib’s chest as he squeezed the little Irken’s shoulders. “You’re _ free! _”

“_Free? _ ” Zim spat bitterly, anger lighting up his watery eyes as he slapped Dib’s hands away from him. “FREE? You- You IDIOT creature! Zim is-” The anger drained away as quickly as it had come, Zim’s almond-shaped magenta eyes widened with dawning horror. “Zim is… _ alone._” He grabbed his antenna as the panic began to set it. “I failed my mission! I’ve disappointed my Tallests! I- I _ can’t- _” 

“Hey, hey, Zim, look- just look at me- it’s going to be ok, alright?” Dib tried to rest his hands back on Zim’s shoulders but was vehemently shook off.

“No, it’s _ not, _ nothing is ever going to be ok _ again, _ you horrid, smelly, rotten- _ get your filthy hands off me! _” Dib snatched his hands away, leaving them hovering, open and awkward by his shoulders, like a sign of surrender as Zim tried to hide his face in his own little hands. Silence fell between the two as flames raged around them, ash falling like snow as Zim’s narrow shoulders quivered, and Dib helplessly watched his heart break. 

“Zim, I- ugh, come on, man.” Dib’s eyes flicked away as he heaved a deep, uncomfortable sigh and hesitantly turned his gaze back onto his age-old rival. “Look, things are kind of a mess right now, I get it, believe me, I_ do. _ But we can still fix this. We just need to stop your machine, and we can figure this out together, ok?” 

“Just leave Zim alone, Dib-stink. Why do you even care?” Came the miserable reply, muffled through Zim’s gloves. Dib bit his lip as his gaze nervously flicked away again, his shoulders drooped as his hands slowly lowered. The obvious answer was _ ‘because you’re trying to destroy my planet, jackass,’ _ but that wasn’t the honest answer. 

“Because… I had- I _ keep _ having- a dream. Of falling. I dreamt that I died, and you were the only one that cared.” Dib swallowed thickly and sincerely hoped there was enough grit and cinder on his face to mask the heat he could feel rising in his cheeks as Zim peeked over his little fingertips in Dib’s peripheral vision. “And when I woke up, I realized… I’m pretty sure you’re the only one that ever actually gave a shit about me, you know? And I kept, I mean, I couldn’t _ stop _thinking about that for a long time. And eventually, that made me think that I, uh, I think that I maybe really care about you too.” He chanced a look back up at Zim’s face and nervously licked his lips before cracking a tremulous grin. “Look, you’re not going to get a chance to make fun of me for it unless we stop your machine. Now, come on.” He held his hands, palms up, to the Irken, a silent request to take his small hands. 

“We can’t stop it.” Zim murmured distantly, his wide magenta eyes drinking in his human nemesis like he couldn’t quite make sense of what he was seeing.

“Zim, honestly, after everything we’ve been through, I think we can do _ anything _as long as we’re together.” Dib choked on an awkward, disbelieving laugh, his chest felt airy, light after his half-confession, like a terrible weight he’d been lugging around for literal years had finally lifted. “Trust me. Just this once.”

Zim took a tentative step forward, bypassing Dib’s extended hands to roughly cup his human’s jaw. The little Irken intently scanned Dib’s face for a heartbeat before he leaned closer to softly utter.

“You’re revolting.” 

<strike> _ I love you _ </strike>

“You’re a fucking idiot.” Dib huffed back as his hands fell to hold Zim’s waist, gently guiding him closer into Dib’s embrace, moisture pricking dangerously behind his eyes. 

<strike> _ I think I’ve always loved you _ </strike>

And Zim’s lips tasted like ash and sweetness beyond anything Dib could have imagined as the world around them faded to black.

\---

It started like any other Monday.

The September air was crisp with the promise of oncoming winter, but the early morning sunlight brought the warmth of fading summer. Birds sang sweetly from the branches of trees, the leaves in the earliest stages of the annual shift from vivid greens to the coppery hues of autumn.

Not that any of it mattered to the students trapped in Ms. Bitters grade five class, who were collectively too mired in the metaphorical swamp of adolescent apathy to pay much mind to the passing of the seasons, or much of anything else, really. Certainly not to their teacher’s lecture about outer space and how it will eventually implode in on itself. Or the new kid, who was quickly establishing himself as a weirdo. And _ least _of all to the already firmly established class weirdo, who had immediately jumped to defend his freak-king crown. 

“That is no kid! He’s an alien! An _ alien! _ One of the monsters I’ve been talking about! He’s here to conquer Earth!”

“Aw, not this again.” Zita leaned forward across her desk to shoot the class loser a scathing look. Zim- the alien- cast a nervous glance between the big-headed human child that had so easily seen through his brilliant disguise and the purple-haired girl sneering from behind him. “You’re crazy.” 

And that should have been the end of it.

Keyword- should have.

But as Dib lay awake in his bed that night, staring up through the darkness at the faint blurs of tacky glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to his ceiling, he just couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that something was… _ off. _

\---

He was beginning to wonder if he really _ was _crazy.

Dib clenched his teeth from the opposite end of the cafeteria as he intently watched the alien Invader play with his food. Why did no one else ever notice that Zim didn’t eat? Why did Zim even bother enrolling in the lunch program in the first place? He could just bring like a space sandwich or whatever, and their classmates probably wouldn’t notice anything was amiss. 

Dib would though. 

Dib would notice, and literally _ nothing _ would be able to stop him in his mission to steal it from Zim. He would do pretty much _ anything _, up to and including burning the cafeteria down, to get his grubby hands on an actual extraterrestrial sammich.

At the same time, there was some part of him that knew- not what Zim’s horrible species used for a filling in their equally horrible space sandwiches (or if space sandwiches were even a thing). But he could swear that some part of him _ knew, _ with unwavering, bone-deep certainty, that Zim’s favourite _ Earth _filling was grape jelly. Partially because it was sticky sweet, but mostly because it was one of the few satisfying shades of purple on this planet that you could actually consume. Also, he could eat about a third of a jar before it aggravated his stomach enough to actually make him throw up, so it was relatively safe for him too, as long as he only had small quantities at a time. 

And there was literally. No. Reason. _ Why _ Dib’s brain had decided to just _ hallucinate _ this disruptive ‘fact.’ It was completely unfounded, Dib hadn’t even gathered enough evidence to support it as a _ hypothesis. _ Thus far, the tiny green terror had interacted with all human food he’d encountered in the same way- wary curiosity and outright disgust. He hadn’t shown any preference for one variety of food over any others. At all. Dib would know. He’d been intently observing all of the little Invader’s behaviours over the past 3 months. And he had the notes to prove it. If Dib could train himself to _ not blink, _ he would.

But it was like… his already arguably overactive imagination had kicked into some kind of intense overdrive since Zim had marched into his class. The grape jelly thing was just one of _ many _outlandish ‘facts’ his brain drummed up about the alien, seemingly out of nowhere. It was getting to the point of legitimately distracting Dib from his real notes and observations. 

That wasn’t even touching on his _ dreams, _ which had become more vivid than ever. 

Dib reeled back on his seat with a gasp as a realization struck him, earning a warning look from his sister before her attention dropped back down to her GameSlave. The unifying factor of all of Dib’s abnormal issues was… _ Zim. _ The space monster had probably done something to Dib’s head- something _ evil. _

Dib hopped off the bench and stormed across the cafeteria to confront what he was quickly deciding was his mortal nemesis.

\---

Dib hated Zim.

And Zim hated Dib in return.

Dib had never known anyone who could get under his skin like the annoying little Irken could. Just, everything the horrible space cockroach did was irritating to the self-proclaimed paranormal investigator. It’s like the two were simply destined to be mortal enemies.

Which made it especially strange when they forgot that they were enemies. 

It started rationally enough- occasionally, they wound up with a mutual enemy that just made sense to team up against, like Tak. The moment they were out of immediate danger, the truce was off.

However, as time carried on the circumstances and duration of these temporary truces… slipped. University proved to be a VERY rude awakening for them both, neither of whom had ever been challenged by their studies before. Suddenly, they were teaming up to finish projects to bolster one (or both) of their marks, because how could they continue to effectively stalk each other if they couldn’t get into the same classes as each other the following semester? And sometimes those unspoken truces would extend long enough to encompass not only completing the project but binging movies or series, sprawled on Zim’s absurdly comfortable couch with GIR, before they remembered they were supposed to hate each other. Then the gloves would come _ off. _ It’s like they had to argue extra hard after one of these slips to cover up how well they actually seemed to get along if they’d both just be willing to give up on their silly rivalry. Which neither of them were, so it was a moot point. Even if Zim’s grander attempts at conquering humanity had petered off over the years, and Dib’s more sincere efforts to publicly expose the alien with them. 

Still, Dib _ hated _ Zim, and he hated this stupid cycle of foes to friends, and back again, they’d fallen into. He hated himself for constantly slipping into this weirdly domestic thing with his most bitter enemy so often, and so _ easily. _

(And he hated how mournfully soft Zim’s lips were in his dreams when the ashes fluttered down around them like snow. Hated how he _ ached _whenever he woke from that dream, like his heart was breaking. How he so desperately missed something he’d never had.) 

Dib had been… confused before. About what was real and what he’d imagined. He remembered things that hadn’t happened and forgotten things that had. His inability to differentiate between his imagination and reality had not done him any favours growing up. He’d spent more than his fair share of time in the Crazy House for Boys. His father had Dib run the whole gauntlet of medications, with their laundry lists of side effects, and talk and talk in seemingly endless circles to an ever-changing cast of therapists, who all had different faces set in the exact same expression. He’d even been strapped down for electrotherapy to try and cure him of his rampant delusions. Twice. And through all of it, Dib had learned two things:

To keep notes because he couldn’t trust his memory, and to _ lie. _

And, it was pathetic to admit, but through it all in an unexpected and almost cruel twist of fate, Zim wound up being one of the only people in Dib’s life that _ noticed, _ let alone _ cared, _ about how all of this was affecting _ Dib. _ Despite being the face of Dib’s torment, as almost all the delusions that haunted Dib centred around the petite Invader.

Because they hated each other, sure, but they were also painfully aware that they were both outsiders in a cruel world that would hurt them if they let their guard down. A mutual enemy that it just made sense for them to team up against.

So Dib would rather _ die _ than admit any of his weird dreams and baseless assumptions to Zim. Sure, Zim thought Dib was ‘crazy,’ but it was a different kind of crazy than what everyone else saw in him. A kind that didn’t change the way Zim treated him. Zim saw Dib as a rival, an _ equal, _ where everyone else treated Dib as... something subhuman. Something they just didn’t want to deal with at all. (And that’s what it was- not accepted or respected, _ dealt with. _ ) And if Zim ever started to look down on him like that… Dib didn’t know what he’d do. Embarrassingly, the thought had driven him to tears on more than one occasion. As fucked up as it was, as fucked up as _ they _ were, in a twisted way, Zim was the only one Dib knew he had in his corner. And he wouldn’t risk losing that. He _ couldn’t. _

So Dib bottled it all up until he lashed out instead because that’s really the only way he knew how to deal with the ugly tumultuous feelings churning beneath his ribs. Because arguing came to them both as naturally as breathing, it was a zero-sum game between the two. No matter how ugly it got in the moment, the scales would eventually rebalance, and life would continue on as it always had. 

Or so Dib had thought.

Then he’d gotten confused again, and ruined everything. 

He’d thought Zim had told him. The memory of Zim’s brow wrinkled in confusion, his large magenta eyes glistening with hurt, baffled tears was so solid, so _ real, _ he’d thought for _ sure _ it had happened. He thought <strike>his Zim</strike> the _ real _ Zim already _ knew _his leaders had abandoned him. 

Well, the joke was on Dib, because the only one that wound up being abandoned after that argument was him.

\---

Dib bolted upright in his bed with the sound of his window shattering.

“_Zim? _” 

Sure enough, the little Irken rigidly straightened from where he’d landed on Dib’s messy desk under the window to fix the human with a look of tight-lipped anger, his wide, magenta eyes glowing faintly with undisguised fury. 

“How did you know?” Zim’s voice was dangerously low in the darkness.

“_What? _” Dib blinked, bewildered, half-dressed and half-asleep, he legitimately had no idea what was going on. 

“How did you KNOW?” Zim snapped, his volume rising shrilly with a note of desperation Dib had rarely heard before as the Invader’s eyes squeezed shut, and he viciously yanked his little antenna. And it suddenly clicked.

“You told me.” Dib’s voice was small, confused, as he warily eyed up the unstable alien. Zim’s eyes snapped back open as his face twisted in barely concealed rage. 

“I am _ not _ in the mood for your idiot _ games, _ Dib.” Zim spat as his long PAK legs extended to lift him threateningly into the air. He stepped menacingly closer to Dib’s bed. 

“You DID tell me! On the rooftop, don’t you remember?” Dib barked back as he frantically scrambled away until his back was pressed against his wall. 

“You ugly, insolent worm! _ How _ could I have told you something I didn’t KNOW?” Zim’s breath hitched, his narrow shoulders bunching defensively as his expression flinched to something dangerously close to anguish before the little Irken schooled it back into something appropriately enraged. No weakness, not now. “Now, _ human, _ you are going to tell Zim _ everything, _ or I’m going to gouge your hideous eyes out.” He loomed over his age-old nemesis and raised one PAK leg threateningly, the wickedly sharp tip shining cold silver with the dark promise of violence. 

“So it never happened, that thing on the rooftop with your, uh, your machine that- Or the star map and the cheesy cocoon of misery?” Dib’s eyes flicked away as he gritted his teeth. “But it’s still true, isn't it? It didn’t happen, but it’s still_ real. _” 

“What are you blathering on about?” Zim sneered, and Dib’s gaze snapped back to the tiny Invader, widening like this was the first time he’d ever seen him. 

“I don’t know,” Dib glanced down at his hands as though they didn’t belong to him. “I don’t know, none of this is… right.” His eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. “Sometimes I- I think I’m losing my _ mind _ because it feels like everyone is just, I don’t know. Nothing feels _ real _ sometimes. Like everything is following a _ script _ or something, except for _ me._” Dib’s gaze snapped back up to Zim as realization dawned in his sharp amber eyes. “And _ you._” Suddenly he lurched away from the wall. “It’s always been _ you. _ Tell me, you’ve felt it too, right? You remember things that never happened, you know things that you shouldn’t. You _ know _ this isn’t how things are supposed to be- you’ve felt it too, like we’ve… We’ve _ done this before._” 

“You’re as crazy as the rest of your pathetic species claims, Earth-stink.” Zim scoffed, his arrogant, dismissive tone a direct contrast to the way he reflexively flinched away from the human boy.

“No, Zim, just think about it! How else could I have known about your Tallests?” Dib scrambled to the edge of his bed, following Zim’s hasty retreat with desperation. “Or- or Minimoose?” Dib clenched his teeth, his heart in his throat. The floating purple moose was one of the few background figures in his many delusions that didn’t exist in real life, and he’d come to rely on the tiny figure’s presence as a marker to let him know if a particular memory was false. But, despite being a figment of Dib’s imagination, recognition lit up in Zim’s eyes.

“Minimoose…” Zim’s voice was small, far away, as he sank back down to the floor to stand on his own two feet. The little Irken’s face melted into a look of fear as he slowly backed away from Dib, his gaze rapidly flicked back and forth as though unspeakable horrors lurked in the shadows of Dib’s cramped and cluttered dorm room as Zim reached up to clutch the sides of his head. “What _ is _ this? What did you _ do? _” 

Pure, unadulterated _ relief _ bubbled up in Dib’s chest, and he couldn’t help but laugh, a breathless, borderline hysterical thing. It wasn’t all just in his head, after all. He wasn’t crazy. _ He wasn’t crazy. _

“I don’t know, Zim, but now we can figure it out. We can fix this, whatever it is.” He held his hands, palms up, to the Irken, a silent request to take his small hands.

Zim eyed him warily as the muted glow of the street lights outside filtering through the window began to dim. Finally, he took one hesitant step towards his nemesis(?). Then two, squinting as his vision began to go a bit fuzzy, darkening around the edges. 

And then, everything unravelled. 

The hard cement floor beneath him gave way, like he’d been somehow standing on the surface of water, and Zim suddenly plunged beneath the surface with a startled cry.

And the last thing he saw was Dib’s face, his beautiful, honey-brown eyes wide in both shock and horror, hands still outstretched as the world around them dissolved into layers of black on black on black.

\---

It started like any other Monday.

The September air was crisp with the promise of oncoming winter, but the early morning sunlight brought the warmth of fading summer. Birds sang sweetly from the branches of trees, the leaves in the earliest stages of the annual shift from vivid greens to the coppery hues of autumn.

Not that any of it mattered.

Because nothing mattered.

And the scene glitched and frizzled and frayed at the seams, grey and stale and outgrown.

\---

_ Zim awoke with a start to a world of utter darkness. For a moment, he thought the pitch black was somehow immobilizing him, wrapped tight around him like a ruthless, smothering, binding, but came to realize he was only paralyzed by his own fear. No matter which way Zim turned, he was met by inky darkness deeper than any shade he’d ever imagined. So dark it felt heavy, pressing in on all sides until he couldn’t even tell where it ended and he began. _

_ He didn’t know what had woken him up, or why, until he heard it again. Faint, like it was travelling through liquid instead of air, it beat against him, echoing from all sides. _

_ “Zim-!” _

_ An emotion he couldn’t name surged through his small chest as he whirled weightlessly in the darkness, desperate to find the source, his antenna perked upright and quivering with the intensity of his concentration, eager to hear and pinpoint the distant cry. _

_ “ZIM!” _

_ This time the voice rang crystal clear, and Zim threw his head back to look above him (Below him? He had no sense of direction in this place) with a small gasp. High above him, a tiny pinprick of light twinkled faintly like a star. _

_ “... Dib?” _

_ Hope surged beneath his ribs, and he flung his arms above him, waving frantically as he called back. _

_ “I’m here! Zim is here!” _

_ He couldn’t fight a tremulous smile as the other voice, closer now, clearer, and soothing in its familiarity sighed with palpable relief. For the first time, he became aware that he was moving, drifting in a slow orbit around the tiny flickering star. _

_ “Are you alright?” Dib called out through the darkness. _

_ “I think so?” Zim blinked, honestly he really wasn’t sure, he didn’t know how he could even tell. “Are you?” _

_ “I’m not sure?” Came the tentative reply. There was a beat before the Dib haltingly continued. “I think, um, I think I’ve found a way out?” _

_ Zim felt his stomach drop. _

_ “Out?” _

_ “Yeah.” _

_ Zim swallowed thickly and looked away from the pinprick of light as he wrapped his arms around his narrow shoulders. _

_ “Where does it lead?” _

_ “I don’t know.” Dib’s voice was softer now. _

_ Zim’s brow furrowed, and he looked back up at the star, his lips pressing into a tight line and anxious energy prickling up his spine. _

_ “What if it’s worse than this?” _

_ “What if it’s better?” _

_ Zim bit his lip and curled into himself. “What’s wrong with what we have now? We’ve always found a way to make it work before.” Trepidation laced the edge of his tone. _

_ “It’s not real, Zim.” _

_ “What IS real then, Dib?” Zim snapped back. _

_ “I don’t know, but I’m going to find out.” His human sighed, somewhere either light-years away or beneath Zim’s own skin. “We can’t keep doing this, and you know it.” _

_ Zim’s gaze dropped down, away from the star once more as he held his tiny palms open in front of him, not that he could see them. _

_ “But what about… my mission? My Tallests, my people? What if-” He choked on raw fear, moisture pricking dangerously behind his eyes. “What if none of them are real either? What am I- what are WE- without my mission?” He clenched his fists and tilted his head back to gaze imploringly up at the star. It was a long while before Dib’s voice floated back to him. _

_ “I know you’re scared, Zim, it’s ok. Honestly, I am too.” His human’s voice was uncharacteristically gentle in the darkness of the strange in-between they were currently stranded in. A warmth lifted Dib’s tone, a quiet, well-worn affection that filled Zim’s chest with an unnamed emotion so beautiful it hurt deep inside. “But, after everything we’ve been through, I think we can do anything as long as we’re together.” _

_ Zim cupped one small hand over his mouth, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as the first hot tear slipped down his cheek. Still, he could feel his human reaching out to him, hands outstretched, palms up, a silent request Zim had snubbed many, many, many times before. _

_ “Come with me, Zim, I can’t do it alone, not without you. Please,” Dib’s voice pleaded from nowhere and everywhere at once. Zim could feel the tug deep in his chest, like a physical tie between the two, gently but firmly pulling him towards that distant, shining star. “Trust me. Just this once.” _

_ And, although Zim was frightened, more frightened than he’d ever been, he did. There was no one he trusted more as he reached out blindly into the crushing darkness. _

\---

It started like any other Monday.

The September air was crisp with the promise of oncoming winter, but the early morning sunlight brought the warmth of fading summer. Birds sang sweetly from the branches of trees, the leaves in the earliest stages of the annual shift from vivid greens to the coppery hues of autumn.

Not that any of it mattered to the students trapped in Ms. Bitters grade five class, who were collectively too mired in the metaphorical swamp of adolescent apathy to pay much mind to the passing of the seasons, or much of anything else, really. Certainly not to their teacher’s lecture about outer space and how it will eventually implode in on itself. They gazed numbly out the window, doodled aimlessly in the margins of their notebooks, or stared out at nothing in particular and daydreamed as the minutes slowly slipped away into hours. 

Once the bell finally rang to free them from skool, the children rushed past the two empty desks at the front of the class, one closest to the window, the other to the door, that no one bothered to sit in for reasons that seemed too trivial to even consider. 

\---

_ Find me a place, where the sun shines through the rain _

_ Find me the pleasure in the pain _

_ While the song remains the same _

_ Let it go on _

_ And on _

_ And on _

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Tfw even your title characters rebel against the lack of opportunity they're given for character development in the canon series /salt
> 
> For real though, thank you for sticking with this to the end. It was kind of a weird style experiment, so I hope it worked? 
> 
> In a wild and wacky alternate universe, this would have been written to either 'The Dying of the Light' ([Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2EKF35mevg), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/5RAexPayMfVHpUltQGAX8L?si=0j7J-PF5TCGYHtMEt_V70Q)) or 'In the Heat of the Moment' ([Youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgYcjUdlMQk), [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/track/0Y8SCvTYAYHhNz3JmOmgpz?si=9g6nIiOeTcyUTvg_QL1GDw)). In the end, While the Song Remains the Same won out because the lyric of 'let it go on, and on, and on' brought the idea for a time loop into the equation. Either way, I was just really feeling the Noel Gallagher, I guess? 
> 
> Again, this was a (late! whoops whoops) prompt for the lovely [zadr week; Phase 2](https://zadrweekphase2.tumblr.com/), so make sure to check them out, and, as always, have a lovely day~


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